Continental treats their best customers better

Ever wish it was easier to use your miles? Well, you can if you switch to Continental. Over the past ten years, I have tried many times to use my American miles. I can always get a ticket with double miles. But that's not the point - that makes the miles worth less. In contrast, when ever my wife wants to use miles, she calls Continental and they open a seat for her. This is something Continental does (for anyone above the silver level - 25,000 annual miles) that American does not. I have gotten so pissed off over this issue that I have switched my allegiance to Continental.

Ever wish it was easier to use your miles? Well, you can if you switch to Continental. Over the past ten years, I have tried many times to use my American miles. I can always get a ticket with double miles. But that's not the point - that makes the miles worth less. In contrast, when ever my wife wants to use miles, she calls Continental and they open a seat for her. This is something Continental does (for anyone above the silver level - 25,000 annual miles) that American does not. I have gotten so ****ed off over this issue that I have switched my allegiance to Continental.

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Welcome to MP HenryHiggins!

Sorry to hear you've struggled with using your miles. I have had no issue using mine though. I just booked the following trip with my AA miles:

Chicago - London on American Airlines in First Class
London - Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific in First Class
Hong Kong to Fukuoka, Japan on Cathay Pacific in Business Class
Fukuoka, Japan to Colombo, Sri Lanka on Cathay Pacific in Business Class
Colombo, Sri Lanka to Singapore on Cathay Pacific in Business Class
Singapore to Sydney on Qantas in First Class (on the new A380!)
Sydney to Chicago on Qantas and American Airlines in First Class

I'm very happy with my ability to do this, and didn't struggle at all with the flights.

Here are some tips most people use when trying to get the low award prices on AA:

AA makes space available approximately 330 days out, so plan early.

Avoid trying to book awards to late to high season destinations. For example, trying to find award seats to Europe this summer would be very difficult. Summer is high tourist season and school is out of session, so AA's award flights disappear very quickly.

Try to be flexible with your dates and times

If you're struggling online try calling AA and seeing if they can route you through another city. If you want to fly from DFW-LHR direct and it isn't available, try looking at DFW-MIA-LHR or DFW-ORD-LHR.

You can use your AA miles for award flights on AA's partners like British Airways, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, etc. These award flights are not visible online, so you need to call AA to book them. If you can't get from Dallas to London on American, you might be able to on British Airways (watch out for the fuel surcharges though!)

Hopefully you find some good information here, whether you want to fly American or Continental.

Actually, I've never heard that name. But I also don't completely agree with the OP. There have been enough complaints about CO customer service for elites vs. UA during the merger that I think the OP's wife has been very lucky.

Is this an advertisement? Why are there so many new users with strong, one-direction opinions about airlines posting single threads in this forum? Very similar styles of post and thread title ...

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AA sent an email out to all their elite members earlier today inviting them to register for MilePoint and post questions for Maya Leibman, the President of AAdvantage who is doing a live chat here next week.

Most people posted in the correct thread, but a few got lost and posted in the Newbie and General Travel threads.

AA sent an email out to all their elite members earlier today inviting them to register for MilePoint and post questions for Maya Leibman, the President of AAdvantage who is doing a live chat here next week.

Most people posted in the correct thread, but a few got lost and posted in the Newbie and General Travel threads.

I gotta say, this is such a nice way to address misplaced threads. Thanks for keeping MP so friendly!

BTW, on the question of ability to use CO miles, I've found it fairly easy to use them on partner airlines, and with flexibility not too bad on CO. Again, YMMV, but in the last 3 years, which is slightly after I switched from UA to CO as my primary carrier, I booked (all in summer or around Christmas):

SFO-TLV in AirFrance Y for 3 tickets;
SFO-MAD; LIS-DTW-SFO in CO Y for 4 tickets
SFO-YQB in CO Y for 4 tickets
LAX-BCN-EWR-LAX in LH F for 1 ticket (Originally this was all the way to TLV, also in LH F)

With a family of 4, we obviously have different needs from someone who is looking for 1 premium cabin ticket, but so far CO has met my needs. I recently lost my elite status that I had had for 4 years, but there didn't seem to be a marked difference in award availability between elite and non-elite. BTW, I had found it pretty easy to use miles on UA as well, both in Y and in F (before we had kids).

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